Adams and Hamilton defending detainees in Cuba

Adams defended British soldiers
John Adams was a true patriot. He left his family and served his county untirelessly. Among his many accomplishments, he secured money for the American revolution, served as ambassador and was President of the United States. See here. An earlier but lesser known service that Admas undertook was to defend two British soldiers who were involved in the Boston Massacre.

The Boston Massacre occured in 1770 when a group of provoked British soldiers fired into a crowd of American civilians. See here. From all accounts, Adams put up a fine defense. John Adams later referred to the case as "the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country" See here. Why would a patriot such as Adams, who sacrificed so much for the revolutionary cause, be so proud of defending the enemy? In accepting the case, Adams said that the "last thing an accused person should want is council in a free country." Adams believed that in America, everyone deserved a trial, even our enemies.


Hamilton defended Tories
Alexander Hamilton was another patriot who defended unpopular people. His accomplishments include the following: serving with Washington in the Continental army, leading infantry against the British fort at Yorktown, writing many of the Federalist Papers urging the adoption of the U.S. Constitution and serving as the first secretary of the treasury. See here. Also here.

After the Revolutionary war, he practiced law and took cases where Tories were suing to get their houses back. See here. In addition, he published two letters under the name of "Phocion" which argued that disenfranchising loyalists could lead to tyranny and was unconstitutional. Hamilton, like Adams, represented unpopular people for principled reasons.

Detainees at Guatanamo Bay
The U.S. is holding suspected terrorists at a U.S. naval base in Cuba. They are our enemies much as the British and Tories were during the Revolutionary War. The Bush administration fought against giving those detainees a hearing on whether they deserve to be there. It took the U.S. Supreme Court to say that the U.S. courts have jurisdiction over the base and that the detainees could challenge their detention. Summary. Actual decision. Since the Supreme Court decision, the military has been conducting hearings. See here. Link to a recent congressional hearing regarding Guantanamo. Amnesty International's report that touches on Guantanamo Bay.

The fact that the Bush Administration was holding people without any type of a hearing would greatly offend these founding fathers. Both Adams and Hamilton represented people who were considered our enemies and who were vastly unpopular. Thus, I believe that if those two were alive today, they would not only be vocal critics of the administration's past policy, they would be down in Cuba themselves representing the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.